


Red

by Blueroseflower



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Batman Beyond
Genre: Alfred is the best, Angst and Feels, Big Brother Dick Grayson, Damian Wayne is Robin, Dead Parents, Father-Son Relationship, Fluff, Hugs, Murder, Other, Protective Jason Todd, The Court of Owls - Freeform, Work In Progress, are freaky as hell, dead children, just a lot of dead people in general, street rat terry mcginnis, yea screw those guys, young terry mcginnis
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-23
Updated: 2018-11-17
Packaged: 2019-08-06 13:08:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16388288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blueroseflower/pseuds/Blueroseflower
Summary: Terry Mcginnis has been alone all his life. Suddenly though he has a family bigger than he could ever imagine having. In other words Bruce adopts Terry and is trying to find out what happened to Warren and Mary Mcginnis and why Terry can't remember them.





	1. nostalgia

Chapter 1  
Nostalgia 

 

The sun has already gone down in Gotham city making her appearance just a little less safe and a lot more deadly, but anyone who’s lived in Gotham for even a short amount of time can already tell that this is just one of her many faces. 

Something about the dark has always comforted Terry in a strange way. Darkness meant safety, it kept you hidden from the prying eyes of the world unlike light which made everything much harder. Harder to hide, harder to run or in this case harder to steal. In this part of town they don’t have that many lights apart from the occasional street lamp or a dimmed glow coming from an apartment window other than that it was dark. Apart of Terry has always felt drawn to this place and before anyone asks no he doesn’t know why but the guy stepping out of that fancy ass car certainly walks like he has a purpose in mind. 

The guys not quite old but he is hunched over a little and Terry can see that the spots of grey hair that are finally coming in near the roots.. He isn’t dressed like the other people who step into Crime Alley with his fancy wool coat and polished leather shoes. Those layers probably keep the cold out better than Terry’s ripped jeans and dirty hoodie ever could and he’s only a little bit jealous but that’s ok because a guy driving around in this kind of style must have some serious cash. Sure the guy might not carry it all with him but most people are dumb enough to leave things of value in their car especially if they’re not planning to be out long.

It must be Terry’s lucky day because clearly this guy was stupid enough- or distracted enough to leave his car unlocked. When his fingers make contact with the cold metal it hardly registers mostly because they’ve gone numb from the cold and also because he has one eye on the mouth of the alley just waiting for the guy to spring out with some kind of lethal weapon in hand. The car door makes a dull clicking sound as it opens, and Terry lets out a sigh of relief that fogs up the air around him. It smells clean inside, not like the other car’s Terry’s hit which mostly smell like cigarette smoke and sweat, it even has one of those fancy ashtrays though it hardly looks used. There’s not much of anything inside the car except a wallet and Terry’s already grabbed that stuffing it underneath his hoodie. He roots around for a few more moments and eventually finds a cheque book stashed in the glove compartment though he’s not actually sure he can do anything with that.

As Terry retreats from the passengers side door he looks up and his heart skips a beat as two eerily similar blue eyes make contact. At first the guy doesn’t do anything which Terry can understand. If this guy was raised with half the amount of money that Terry thinks he was the guy’s probably never been in this situation before. Then out of fucking nowhere- he starts laughing like full blown stop tickling me because I need to breath kind of laughing. Honestly what kind of dude gets robbed and then starts laughing about it?! Not a sane one that's for sure and with that in mind Terry bolts because he sure as fuck isn’t sticking around to find out whether his intuition is correct or not. 

Or at least he tries to, Terry’s barely made it five steps when a hand lashes on to his hoodie pulling him backwards. Terry’s feet are dangling a few inches above the ground whoever this guy is he’s seriously strong, or on steroids either one. 

“I’d say this is all a huge misunderstanding but I have a feeling you won’t believe me.” By now it's so easy to slip into the mask of cocky street rat that it hardly takes Terry any effort at all, doesn't work on most people but sometimes it enough to stall them. 

“You’re right, I don’t believe you” the guy says but he doesn’t look angry more amused? There’s a strange twinkle in the guys blue eyes almost like he’s had this happen to him before. Which would be weird because if somebody hijacked your car once why would you come back for a second time? 

“Tell you what,” Terry grins bringing some fake bravo to his face. “I buy you a sandwich and we call it even?”

He hadn’t been expecting the guy to say yes.

***

Well he hadn’t exactly said yes. More like he’d asked for his wallet and checkbook back and then offered to buy Terry a sandwich. 

“Slow down Terry, you’re going to lose a finger”

Terry doesn’t even bother to look up at the guy he’s too busy inhaling his food and yeah he might lose a finger but it would be worth it. He hasn’t had a hot meal in a long time and by hot he means in a warm place on a table not something he scronged from a dumpster or lifted from the corner store. He slows down just enough to look up at the guy who’s name is Bruce apparently.

“Sorry,” he says between bites of food. “Just been awhile since I had food this good,” What Terry should have said was it had been awhile since he’d had food period but a white lie once in a while never hurt anyone, even when they did. 

“ You’re a funny guy Bruce most people don’t like to feed strays,” It’s true most people don’t because if you feed a stray it’ll only return hoping you’ll feed it again and it occurs to Terry that he should probably say thank you but he hasn’t figured out if this guy has an ulterior motive or not yet.

“I’m not most people.” 

“Yeah I figured that out when you parked your car in Crime Alley.” Although just looking at him you could probably already tell he wasn’t ‘most people’. “Why’d you leave your car there anyway? A snazzy pair a wheels like that is bound to have something happen to it”

The guy leans back in his seat crossing both arms over his chest and stares out the window like he’s remembering something. “ That's a story for another day.”

Terry raises an eyebrow but doesn’t question the guy further even if a part of him wants to try and pry some more information out of the man but whatever happened was obviously painful for the guy to remember, so Terry doesn’t say anything.

“Where are your parents?” Bruce asks suddenly and Terry barely manages to swallow his food without choking. When Terry tries to think about his parents, the images are always fuzzy. Vaguely he thinks his mom might have red hair but he’s not actually sure. Instead of trying to articulate these thoughts out loud he just shrugs instead. 

“Don’t know,” Terry says licking the crumbs off his fingers and now it Bruce’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “You don’t know?” Bruce has an incredulous look on his face but there isn’t anything he can do about, if Terry knew why he can’t remember anything before eight years old he’d tell Bruce.

“Are you even in the system?” 

Terry in fact was, but from his point of view staying in an orphanage run by a perverted priest was worse than sleeping on a cardboard box.

“No idea.” Terry answers instead.

Well this has been fun but they have to part ways eventually and now is a perfectly convenient time to do so, they’ve both finished their food and have nothing left to talk about. Terry makes the first move. 

Standing up from his seat he gives Bruce a two fingered salute and grins sheepishly. “Sorry about the whole stealing from you thing, wish I could say I regret but I don’t” If he hadn’t tried to steal from the car Bruce probably wouldn’t have bought him a sandwich which is kind of strange when you think about it. “See ya around and Hey thanks for the sandwich!”


	2. The Gray Ghost

Chapter 2  
The Gray Ghost

Maxine Gibson was a smart girl. In fact, one might even say she was highly intelligent but even if she didn’t get straight A’s on her homework assignments she could probably tell that she wasn’t supposed to be seeing this. She held very, very still hoping against hope that whatever had just fallen off of the apartment building’s fire escape would not see her hiding behind the dumpster. Fuck it, her mom was right taking shortcuts home was a bad idea. Max couldn’t really tell whether or not the thing had jumped or stumbled over the railing but she did hear the sickening crack as its body made contact with the ground. 

It reminded her of a newborn foal as the creature clumsily climbed to its feet. Max winced in sympathy when she saw the odd way its arm was hanging. The creature didn’t seem to notice however as it merely looked around, probably to get his bearings back it did take a rather long fall. As it walked closer to her hiding spot max held her breath but it didn’t seem to notice her. Now that she had a better look at whatever it was Max realised that it didn’t have a horribly disfigured head as she’d originally thought they were only wearing a mask. It reminded Max of an owl.

Suddenly it all clicked into place as her eyes her eyes started to water. Nearly everyone in Gotham had heard the legend. It was a rhyme that kids would chant while skipping rope, a bedtime story parents used to scare their children to sleep at night. That's all the story was meant to be, it wasn’t supposed to be real. Max wasn’t sure when the thing had gotten so close, just standing a hair’s breadth away from peering around the dumpster to look at her. If Max hadn’t understood what the phrase ‘paralysed with fear’ meant before she certainly did now, her body was frozen, heart pounding silently away in her chest. 

 

It was only after the thing disappeared into the night that Max could finally feel her legs again and shakily she got to her feet. Max felt her knees wobbling dangerously as she used one hand to steady herself against the brick wall. One thing Max knew for certain was that she was never going to take a shortcut again, no matter how late she was. To Max, this encounter, felt like the calm before the storm, an omen if she ever saw one. But what could she do it wasn’t like the police would believe her, she was smart enough to know that. A thought dawned on her suddenly. The police weren’t Gotham’s only guardians the city had much more than that to protect her. 

 

***

There was something very unsettling about the file illuminating the screen of the bat computer, it depicted a red-headed man and woman holding hands with a little boy. The file was labelled ‘McGinnis’.

Warren and Mary Mcginnis were just reaching their late thirties when they died. Homicide victims, the official cause of death was a slash wound to the subclavian artery on both victims. They would have bled out very quickly. Terrence McGinnis was the only survivor of the attack and a key witness however he was never interviewed. You didn’t need to be the world's greatest detective to figure out there was something very sketchy about this investigation. First, there was a lack of following proper protocol when dealing with a situation like this. Second, there was key evidence missing from the file, basic crime scene photos, interviewing witnesses to see if they saw or heard anything, contacting social services. 

 

As he was scrolling through the file, looking for anything that could even remotely be considered evidence Bruce stopped before enlarging the image of a police officer bending down to look at the bodies. The part that interested him wasn’t the police officer though, it was the newspaper he held underneath his arm. It depicted a man wearing a grey fedora and goggles. Finally, he had a lead.

“Can I assist you with anything master Bruce?”

Alfred appeared behind him, he had a habit of doing that. Bruce glanced back at him and pulled the cowl down to cover his face. “No,” he said standing up while he turned off the bat-computer.“just an interesting case I’m working on.”

“And what of the boy? Should I prepare the guest bedroom?” 

Bruce smiled slightly he never could hide anything from Alfred. “Yes and while you’re at it give Commissioner Gordon a call,” 

“Right away sir,”

***

Clearly, Terry hadn’t learned his lesson about stealing, not when he was practically waist deep in looting the Batmobile. Did he have a problem? Yes, Terry was willing to admit that much. Was he just asking for trouble? Also yes but neither of those things stopped him from prying into the passenger's side door with a crowbar. It had been extremely difficult and had required a few drops of Hydrochloric acid courtesy of one Melanie Walker but eventually, Terry felt the doors lock give and he let out a silent cry of victory in his head. The tip of something sharp pressed into his back digging into his skin through the thin layer of cloth he was wearing.

“Drop whatever it is you have in your pockets and I’ll reconsider gutting you, flaying you and turning you into a pair of shoes .”

The voice that spoke behind him was definitely male, maybe only a little bit older than Terry fifteen or sixteen? As Terry emptied his pockets out he felt on some level like a toddler that had been caught trying to steal an extra cookie after dinner or rather the entire jar. He turned his pockets inside out so the person behind him could see he wasn’t hiding anything but the Batarang stuffed in the waistband of his jeans. 

“Turn around with your hands up and if you try anything I’ll shove my sword through your back.” 

The weapon pressed into his skin harshly and Terry had no doubts that the warm liquid dripping down his back was blood. Slowly Terry followed the instructions keeping his hands level with his head as he turned around. He blinked when he saw splashes of red, yellow and green: the colours of Robin. Now Terry had never met Robin before but he was pretty sure that they weren’t supposed to look like grumpy, teenage boys or point swords at you.

“Uh,” Terry started to say before he could stop himself “Can you stop pointing that at me, it's kind of rude.” 

“Do you have a death wish?” Robin growled out disbelievingly and Terry shrugged his shoulders.

“That's a matter of opinion really, but last time I checked Robin’s not supposed to carry pointy sticks around and threaten people with them.”

The slightly taller teenager looked incredulously at Terry and he could almost see the expression of ‘are you fucking serious?’ behind the mask. Rule number three of stealing: let them underestimate you, so when the time is just right you can slip away unnoticed. Either that or Terry just liked pushing people's buttons. 

“This is a katana, you stupid child!” 

“If I’m a child then you’re barely a teenager! That stick is practically taller than you are!” It wasn’t, not by a long shot but Robin still spluttered his face flushing angrily. Huh, maybe Terry had hit a sore spot then.

“You-” He started but was interrupted when a figure landed heavily on the roof of the batmobile startling both of them. 

“What the fuck demon spawn. I thought B band you from using the sword on patrol” The voice came out slightly distorted through the helmet. 

Terry didn’t need to see the helmet to know who this was. Fuck, he was having a really shitty day.


	3. A trail of feathers

Chapter 3  
A trail of feathers

It had been a fairly normal patrol for Jason Todd. Wake up, eat, shoot some scumbags in the face, non lethally of course because that was part of the rules when you were playing in Bruce’s territory. However, getting attacked by a motherfucking Talon was not supposed to be on his schedule today. The fucker had even managed to stab him in the shoulder with a throwing knife before they’d scampered back to the shadows to lick their wounds, he even has the dagger to prove it. The court of owls had tangled with Bruce a long time ago and lost, Jason knew that much but apparently, he hadn’t managed to wipe them out fully. That was something he would have to remedy and soon.

He’d just pulled out his phone so he could give the old man a call when he walked past Damian pointing a katana at some kid. Jason did a double take. What the fuck, if he wasn’t allowed to carry around lethal weapons than Demon spawn wasn’t either. NO, it's not childish okay? Jason was just making sure that the fucker didn’t kill anyone. Well, if Damian had his katana out on patrol, it was probably fair to say that Bruce didn’t know about it, he would never let Robin carry a lethal weapon around like that. The kid he had backed up against the Batmobile didn’t look scared though which was kind of funny, to be honest. Damian looked just about ready to explode whatever the kid said had clearly touched some sore spots.

Time to make an entrance. Jason landed heavily on the roof of the Batmobile which was a professional courtesy, Jason could have landed more gracefully if he’d wanted to but it was really funny to watch the punk jump about ten feet in the air. He sat down on the hood of the car resting a hand on his knee. If Damian was surprised Jason had turned up he didn’t show it.

“What the fuck, demon spawn. I thought B band you from using the sword on patrol.” 

“Tt, I could ask you the same question.” Damian sniffed at him, looking pointedly at the guns holstered by his hip. Jason smirked and patted the weapons appreciatively. “Guns aren’t lethal, demon spawn. Bullets are, I’m allowed to play around as long as mine are rubber.” 

“Why are you even here Redhood? I can handle this mongrel by myself.” Damian sheathed his sword for the first time, crossing his arms over his chest. Jason raised an eyebrow and looked at the red blotch staining the back of the kid's jumper, he had a few ideas as to what it was.

“Uh huh, I can see that,” He said dryly. “But B won’t be happy when he finds out you ruffed up a ten-year-old though.” 

“I-I’m thirteen!” The kid spluttered, speaking for the first time, he was clearly offended. Jason ruffled the kid's hair, he was way too scrawny to be thirteen even for a street rat. “ sure you are, kid” he dismissed. 

“If you don’t teach them a lesson the first time. They’ll just come crawling back like cockroaches” Damian sneered. “Besides he tried to break into the Batmobile.” 

Jason choked on the air, then bursts into laughter. He could already feel the tears welling up in his eyes. Break into the Batmobile? Oh man, he liked this kid already. His vision might have been blurred by tears of laughter but he could still see the kid trying to inch away slowly. Towards the mouth of the alley.

“Oh no you don’t,” he said picking the kid up by the scruff of his shirt, before shoving him into the car. 

“What are you?!-” Damian started to say but was interrupted by Jason climbing into the driver's seat of the Batmobile. 

“Shut it Demon spawn, I have to head over to the cave anyway,” Alfred could take a look at the punks back make sure Damian hadn’t gone overboard. 

“ I don’t see why he has to come,”

“I have my reasons.” Jason shrugged. “You either come with me or walk back to the cave. It's your choice.” 

He smirked when Damian reluctantly climbed into the car. 

“I knew you’d see it my way.”


End file.
